Turkey Online Casinos

Turkey may be home to one of the world’s largest Muslim populations, but the country isn’t thought of as an Islamic nation in the way many others are. The government is secular, and the people here draw on a large number of ethnic and cultural traditions. It’s a unique mix that makes this nation, the successor to the Ottoman Empire, a regional power that serves as something of a bridge between the Middle East and Europe.

The mix of secular traditions and Muslim values has meant that gambling has been treated very differently at various times in this nation’s history. While the recent past saw an expansion of gaming, the balance has since shifted towards prohibition, and today there is little in the way of gaming either in land-based or online forms.

State-Owned Firm Dominates Online Landscape

Online gambling in Turkey is treated similarly to land-based gaming under current laws. That means that what is legally available is generally controlled by the state – at least in terms of what the government wants to allow its citizens to play.

IDDAA, along with being the sole provider of sports betting in Turkey, is also the only firm that can legally provide Internet gambling games to residents. That’s great for those who want to bet on soccer or other sports, but not so convenient for those who want to play at online casinos.

The government has made it very clear that they would like to keep foreign operators out of the market. In 2006, a law was passed that made it illegal not only for groups to offer such games, but also for individuals to play them. Further efforts have taken a tact similar to those in the United States and some other countries, with it now being illegal for Turkish banks to authorize payments to and from gaming sites.

But despite all of these efforts, there are still many foreign operators who market their real money Internet games to players here. With no regulatory framework in place, they simply allow Turks to sign up for accounts if they want to – something numerous people in the country have taken advantage of.

The majority of online casinos in Turkey use a selection of the following software packages:

Microgaming

NetEnt

Topgame

Betsoft

SoftSwiss

The best Turkish online casinos are listed in the table below. We've tried and tested them all to ensure they are safe, offer fast cash outs and support both our language and local deposit options.

Top Casino Sites in Turkey 2017

State Operates Legal Options

Gambling in Turkey hasn’t always been so hard to find. In 1990, the country started licensing casinos, and at one time, the industry provided as many as 20,000 jobs in the country. But after concerns of money laundering and corruption in the industry began to intensify, the government began considering restrictions on the resorts in an attempt to reign in their practices.

The final straw may have been the assassination of Omer Lutfu Topal, a man known as the “casino king,” in July 1996. By September, the venues had been limited to opening for just eight hours each day, and all winnings were to be paid out by check as a part of the new anti-money laundering regime.

Predictably, these reforms didn’t sit well with casino owners, who saw them as an extreme overreaction that threatened their businesses. For months, operators engaged in negotiations with government officials over the future of the industry, with just about everything on the table: how many resorts there would be, where they could be located, and how much they would be taxed.

Given the ongoing discussions, it came as a surprise to many when on December 17, the national government announced that all casinos would eventually be closed. For many, the decision seemed suspicious: there were rumors that Deputy Prime Minister Tansau Ciller’s husband may have had a hand in Topal’s death. But officials denounced these claims, saying that the bigger issue was that most of the revenue from the resorts was coming from local bettors – not the foreign tourists and high rollers they were hoping to recruit.

Casino owners fought back against this measure, and they managed to stay open for more than another year while legal battles proceeded in the nation’s court system. But when the final verdict came down, the courts decided with the government, and the final resorts closed on February 11, 1998.

Today, virtually all of the authorized gambling in Turkey is controlled by state-owned firms. The most popular way to place a bet is through the state-run lottery. There is also a government-controlled sports betting firm, known as IDDAA. Parimutuel wagering is also allowed on horse races that are organized by the Jockey Club of Turkey, which runs events at nine racecourses throughout the country.

Anti-Gambling Sentiment Popular, At Least Publically

Given the current social and political climate in Turkey, it seems unlikely that expansion will come to the gaming sector in the near future. With conservative Islamists currently holding power in the government, betting is one of many social ills that are broadly condemned, and the public seems to be in line with that view: one 2014 poll found that 80 percent of Turkish adults found gambling to be morally unacceptable.

But despite statistics such as those, it seems as though there is still plenty of gambling going on in this country, suggesting that at least some amount of the population here may be publically against gaming while privately enjoying playing the lottery or betting on sports. There’s also plenty of underground play going on: police raids on illegal card rooms and other venues are common, and many locations that have been shut down later reappear with names designed to make them appear more respectable, often being ignored by local officials despite their seemingly obvious presence.Even members of political parties have found themselves swept up in raids – though officials have claimed that some of these groups are, in fact, just covers for gambling rings.

None of this bodes well for the future of online gaming in Turkey. Sure, the state-owned site may continue to operate, and as in most countries, it is unlikely that attempts to ban foreign sites will prove particularly effective. But a more substantial move towards regulation seems unlikely, meaning Turks who want to play their favorite betting games online will likely have to continue doing so in the shadows.